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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
520 | Brent Cartwright | NOTE *Sensitive Topics Covered (Suicide & Addiction)*
*Sensitive Topics Covered (Suicide & Addiction)*
Brent talks candidly about the gritty realities behind the badges and uniforms, and the trials of balancing duty with mental health. He shares the importance of peer-based support systems and proactive mental health strategies in combating burnout and post-traumatic stress among first responders.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
yeah, brent, sometimes what we have to do is just hit record. Hey, welcome to the protectors podcast. I have brent cartwright on today. Brent has a very, very interesting career path background a lot of a lot of similarities but a lot of differences.
Speaker 2:But hey, brent, welcome to the show brother hey, uh, you know, jason, appreciate you having me. Man, this is, uh, it's an honor.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much you know we were just like you hit on a little bit for the holidays. You went back to asheville, north carolina, and you think about like just how hammered that area got, but it's not in the media anymore. It's like nowhere in the media can you find, unless it's local news, but you can't find anything going on about, like you know, north Carolina and recovery it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it fell off the map pretty quick. Um, obviously the election came up and you know things got killed off of that. Uh, you know the new focus, but I mean, yeah, it was that a little. You know B things got killed off of that. You know the new focus, but I mean, yeah, it was that little. You know, biltmore Village area is still just completely vacant. I mean, their water levels were 15 foot above the doors and windows and all the. You know it's a big hiking community, so every all the half the trails are still closed out. I mean it's a safety issue. Right, the trees like blew over from the root balls, not even just snapping. So, um, you know getting out there with some chainsaws and help cutting some of the area up, um, I mean it's a mess. It's still an absolute mess. A lot of the roads are still closed.
Speaker 1:It's hard to even get around yeah and imagine, like, think about like a road up there getting washed out and how much like infrastructure you would need to like go and rebuild in order to get a road, because we're you know a lot of people they always like, when you drive down the highways you think you know, get us to throw a new highway up. You could divert it and stuff, when you're talking mountainous regions trying to put a new road in.
Speaker 2:And they're the last ones to get the attention, man, because they're stuck. I mean Asheville already is. You know, their internal infrastructure for the roads are over capacity as it is. They've just blown up population-wise but they're trying to get that stuff open up in the downtown area and the early suburbs. So when you get out into the mountains just to get the equipment up, everybody had to chainsaw their way out you drive down the road, bring your chainsaw. I have to cut out the trees and help move them off. But I mean some of these trees are. Even if you cut a four foot section, the thing weighs 800 pounds. So I mean you get an old guy or old lady. I mean how the heck are they going to get their car through? So it's it's. It's crazy to think about. You know, in such a modern area, I mean even when you get up in the mountains, it's a little different. It's so crazy to think about how long it's taken. This is three months ago and it's still bad.
Speaker 1:One of my friends lives out that way. What they did was they thought about doing a nonprofit or just helping out individual families. Everybody wants to be like you know what I'll just give, give money to red cross, I'll give money to these big organizations. But you know you have individual families who you know for the lack of better terms are they're, they're forgotten, you know. So if you look what their, what their idea was like, hey, you go into a community and you link up with the schools or some other organizations that know who's affected, and then what you do is you like, you kind of like marry up with a family, so you're almost like sponsoring a family yeah because so many people need little things.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, when you start over again, it's, it's everything. It's like pots and pans, it's clothes, it's literally think about little things, even like a salt and pepper shaker man, it is literally you have to rebuild from start. No-transcript. You know, you, you and I I mean a lot of people we put everything on digital nowadays, but is it uploaded to a cloud? But, like, think about family pictures, man? And then they were like hey, you know what, you're an amateur photographer, you know a bunch of other amateur photographers. What if you just roll out there I mean, after the dust settles we're talking like spring and be like hey, look, put on little things like photo sessions, get a hold of a local VFW or something to set up in there at the hall and have people come by and just do family photos, Little things where people just lost everything. But they lost memories too. So now, like, that big family picture on the wall is gone. So maybe you try to recreate things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a fortunate my wife. She's the one that hammered the living crap out of me to get our stuff and turn our stuff you know things like that into the digital platform, and if it wasn't for her, I would still have my boxes of old pictures, my undercover photos and all the crazy stuff. Uh were things that you know we're taking on the old point and shoot, click. Uh, you know $25 job. Uh, you know disposable camera. So, um, yeah, that's. You know that is a problem. You can't replace the memory and that's, and you got the memory in your head. But I mean, I mean just beyond pictures and heirlooms and everything else, I mean it's, it's just, it's just devastating.
Speaker 1:It makes you want to live a simple life. You know it does. It makes you want to be able to like fluid. It's like I. That's one thing I loved about heat. You know that movie heat with um albacino and val kilmer and everybody's like you know you got to be able to like, just leave in 30 seconds flat. I mean I'm not saying like a family man or people in general, but maybe sometimes a simple life isn't that bad yeah, now you're talking my language, the uc man I've got Everybody's got to have a go bag boogie.
Speaker 1:Now, when'd you join the army man?
Speaker 2:Uh, 1996. Uh, it was. I mean, that was on the delayed entry program. And then that was, uh, I got into basic training right after I graduated high school. So, yeah, like early on I I looked at it as a way I'm going to pay for college. So my parents did the best they could to save some money for us for college. But it was just so expensive. And, yeah, man, I have a brother and a sister, so three kids trying to save for college for that, oh, good luck. But I'm also from a military family. So my brother joined up right after the first Gulf War, my dad was in the Army during vietnam and both my grandpa's uh world war ii vets. So I mean it was a legacy thing. But really I was looking at focus, like, hey, I'm gonna pay for college and that's. That's kind of where I went with. Uh, you know my motivation, main motivate. I mean I want to serve. I mean obviously, uh, police work too. I mean I had a call to serve.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot you know, especially when you come from a military family. You kind of have this like, I mean, you know, even if I just do it for three, four or five years, but uh, you have this like thing where it's like hey, dad was in nam man, and you know, you're like, probably you're a little bit younger to me, probably a little bit, but you know you grew up with nam. Like the 1980s and 90s were like on, like the non-vets were still like the action heroes like rambo, mel gibson and uh, lethal weapon, all sorts of stuff like that. And you think about it. You're like, well, you know, if they did it and dad did it, I better do something, because dad's gonna be like ah, you draft dodger you know, I think my dad would have been pretty cool if I didn't.
Speaker 2:He wouldn't have hammered me too bad, uh. But uh, I I know they're proud of me anyway, but my grandpa, yeah, he would have probably grabbed me by the neck and you know, because he joined up when he my grandpa, my mom's side he joined up, lied about his age. He was one of those guys because he was a little bit younger, so the European stuff was winding down, but he went over and did the Pacific.
Speaker 1:So you know, I would love a book or a documentary on how many. I mean you're never going to be able to figure it out, but the stories about how many kids lied at their age, you know, can you like? My son is literally 16 and a half right now and I think about him lying about his age to go fight in the Pacific and I'm like holy, you know, I just I can't imagine it. But I mean I had to be different times back then where you're like you know what I'm going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where the people that tried to sign up and they got rejected for health reasons and they killed themselves. I mean that was a thing like you, that it was that serious. So that was just a crazy time. And you know, you knew the fighting in those wars. I mean not that you know Afghanistan and Iraq and you know Gulf War and Vietnam. They all have their terrors. But man, if you look at stuff in the Pacific, I mean the way that we had to fight those wars was just different technologies and just sending waves of people. That just is a crazy thing.
Speaker 1:Think about your knowledge base. So you got to imagine, like world war like I mean, we're thinking like nowadays frames, world war one would have been about like aren't like desert storm, almost right, a little bit close to that. And then you, so we all know what happened in desert storm, even if there were, like the news and all the other stuff we there was no social media back then, but we know, and you know it could have been rough. But let's say you're a kid, you're 16. The European conflict was hell, and now you've got the Pacific conflict.
Speaker 1:But you know what happened in World War I and you know war is literally hell. You know if you enlist that for one, you're going to be on a damn boat and you never know if you're going to get sunk by a sub or kamikazes or anything. But you know you're going to be going to hell, make literal hell like hell on earth. And you know, when you see the, the shell shock, and you see, and you and remember you're still around around guys that came back from World War I you know, and you're missing limbs. But then you're like damn man, I'm going to be 16 and a half and I'm going to go. And nowadays like 16 and a half. Like you know, the kids are playing Fortnite or whatever the hell they're doing, playing Call of Duty.
Speaker 1:But then I'm like I'm not going to damn Europe. I mean, seriously, I don't even want to leave the house. I know, thank God I have good kids, but still, I mean, you think about it. So you joined the Army. What was your MOS?
Speaker 2:13. Bravo, man, I did the. It's funny. I called the recruiter up and I this is the worst advice I could ever give anybody, so don't do what I did. I just called and said hey, is there something that has a big assigning bonus? Like, stick me in that job? Yeah. And they're like oh yeah, it's twenty five hundred dollars, which you know at seventeen and a half that's a lot of dang money they don't tell you.
Speaker 2:You get half of it, you know, upon completion of basic training, and then, three years later, we'll give you the other half yeah, three, and we'll tax it at 40, 500 bucks.
Speaker 2:You know, get $800 total. So I, yeah, they, you know obviously the recruiter, I doubt there, I didn't even ask or there's different signing bonuses. They just came out and said 13, bravo, that's what we have. Well, I man, I was a in high school, I was a cross country and track runner, little guy. So pretty quick, you know, you know nothing spectacular. I was running the 430 for a mile and I'd run, you know, 16 minutes for a 5k, so, but I weighed 109 pounds, like there's a minimum to get into the military. I barely made the minimum weight, uh, and they're like okay, so now you're gonna be shucking he shells which weigh 102 pounds each on this towed unit.
Speaker 2:I'm like this is an absolute. I mean the hymn it would come by. The big guys are carrying a shell on each shoulder. I'm like, yeah, I'll just take one shell, you'll take the charge bag, I'll take the charge canisters. So yeah, that was a big mistake, number one, not thinking my career choice.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, man listen.
Speaker 2:But you're an artillery guy, enlisted, right.
Speaker 1:I was an enlisted artillery guy. So I went down to the recruiter and I said, hey, you know what man, I want to be an infantry dude. Put in the reserves, because back then you can go into reserves and be infantry. This is before they all phased out infantry into the guard. And so he's like, okay, hey, man, reserves, we'll put you 11 charlie mech unit. I didn't know any better. So I went to a drill weekend before I went to basic and I go to the captain. I'm like, hey, when can I go to ranger school? Like what? So then I go back to my recruiter and I'm like, hey, bro, I want to go active duty, I want to do this. And that he goes okay, man, let's go down to the recruiting, but first we've got to file a hardship, because the only way we're going to be able to get you out of this reserve unit was for you to write a letter and say you can't live on the outside world. I'll do it. I didn't know any better, you know. So I go down there, I file a hardship and I go to the um.
Speaker 1:I go to maps in September and you know, september is the end of the fiscal year. So you got shit for jobs left. And uh, I go on the and maps and they're like heck, yeah, we got two jobs for you. I know one was 13 Bravo and I could I could have swore. The other one was like carpenter or some bullshit. I don't even know what it was. I'm like 13 Bravo, I'm like hell, no, he goes.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? Um, if you leave today, you're going to be stuck in a system you won't be able to go active duty for another year. I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I'm already like pot committed. And uh, he goes. Hey, as soon as you get to there, you get to change your mos, you know. And plus, it's artillery, it's combat arms. You can go like airborne ranger. So I go to fort cell and uh, I get, I get fort carson, colorado, and at the time it was fort cartoon for you know like there was. No, it was fourth id. This was before third acr and and 10th group came in there and it was just kind of like a, a sleepy post to go to to retire, and it was self-propelled artillery. And then, uh, yeah, probably in pre-paladins, right yeah this was definitely pre-paladins.
Speaker 1:It was like the uh god man, what m109, a2 or some shit. And then when I went to fort hood, they put me in a service battery. So I was first half service so I drove a pls. It was like a damn palletized load system and when you were talking about ammo, I'm like just hucking all that ammo but, then my dumb ass goes, that goes to college. And when I commissioned like I'll go infantry, I'm like what am I thinking, man? So did you, did you deploy overseas at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I like you right, so I get out. I get to the National Guard Cause again. I was like, hey, I'm college money and let's. And so the guard Missouri National Guard did a tuition reimbursement system so you could take advantage of your GI bill and get the money. Then there was a student loan repayment plan. It was like 10,000 bucks and then they had the tuition reimbursement. So I get all the way done. And they had a weird stipulation, right, it was if you take anything after, you have to stay three years past the last time. We pay your tuition, like no problem. So I like cut off.
Speaker 2:I had like one semester, so I had two and a half years, and they said, well, here's the deal. So I turned in my gear, I was turning in all my stuff and I was leaving and they said, well, you actually need to get back in because you're six months short. I was like, well, can we just do a six month thing? And they said, no, you can do, we can do a one year re-enlist, like a try, one type thing. I was like, all right, well, send me back in for one more year. I did that, I did one more year, I did that month 11 and we got activated to go deploy. So I got stop lost and then you know it was an 18 month deal.
Speaker 2:But I mean, back in this time I mean this was 2003 it was just a our unit was kind of a nightmare. It was just a lot of everybody penciled the PT test and people weren't in good shape and they reclassed us because they're like we don't need artillery guys over there, we need convoy security and this stuff. So they said, magic Wand, now you're MPs. Well, you could go and be an artilleryman over there and anywhere if you had some shit in your criminal history, but if you had DUIs and other things that killed your clearance to be an MP and they like booted half of our guys out and they had to back us with all the other units Come on man.
Speaker 2:There's no criminals in the military. Yeah, no, no, no, no. So I'm sure this was already in place way before they ever decided to activate us, but they kept us stateside. So I went to Fort Lewis and we replaced an active duty unit that then deployed over. So I mean, it took us like two months of retraining and we were expecting, hey, we're going over.
Speaker 1:And we all hated each other at first and we kind of grouped and came together in a huge motivation thing and they said and now you're going to fort lewis, so, and you know, hey, some other guy, it's beautiful man, you know, if you stay out of downtown seattle and and stay away from, like you know, the homeless encampments, yeah well, I mean, this was back then but it was still kind of shitty, but hey, no, it's beautiful man I love the area I mean there's a lot of public land I'd be out hiking.
Speaker 2:I got to go hunting. Now we got pretty shorthanded and so you know, for all intents purposes, right, we didn't go to war and we didn't have to go over there. So you kind of feel grateful.
Speaker 1:You know hindsight, but at the time it was a pretty good kick in the gut, uh but you know, when you think about it, like, yeah, you, let's say you didn't go overseas, but 18 months of your life and you know, I just wrote this book pivot about people getting out and transition from the military into the civilian sector and I'm like, even if I and I probably should have put a point in there about what if you get activated for like 18 months man like me, I was the same way when I got recalled it was 18 months and I'm like I had to do a hell of a transition to get back into that mindset of a civilian.
Speaker 1:Now, let's say you're a national guard reserves and you get activated for 18 months and then you're like you don't get taps, you don't get this, you don't get that, and if you're lucky you'll have an employer who will rehire you. But what if you don't? What if you were like a college kid? Or what if you just didn't have it like meaningful employment before you went? You still have to transition, you still have to pivot into a career, yeah, but now you have 18 months worth of experience. So how do you, how do you take that transition from that point and get meaningful employment? It's it, employment. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean your book Pivot totally would have helped me out, right? Because when we got activated, I was working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. My girlfriend now my wife she was still in college, so I was just sticking around our college town there in Columbia Missouri and we're just killing time until she gets, you know, graduated. And this happened. Well, I had applied, I'd, you know, taken the LSAT. I'd applied, I was going to law school, so I was like I'm, I'm accepted, let's, you know, get. But that got put on hold.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, 18 months later, and I lost motivation for that. And then, like now we have real world stuff to do, you know, still dating my, my wife at the time. And well, now I want to make money. And so I was kind of lost. I'm like, what do you do to make money? And like, I don't know, start throwing darts.
Speaker 2:Uh, so I helped kill the housing market, uh, you know, doing subprime mortgages and being a loan officer man, so I, I'm that asshole, uh, uh, and that guy, but I looked at it as, like, man, this is a good way to make a lot of money, but I didn't have a tribe and I didn't have, you know, a lot of good, you know, tight-knit group and I went from all of that to now, you know, and somewhat of an action-oriented job to like I'm sitting behind a desk and cold calling people and I think that's what, especially with you know people you're trying to help. Some of the things that they need to look at is like, yeah, you've got a pretty good adrenaline base of what is exciting and even if you're sitting around and cleaning guns and weapons, but you're still go out in the field and do training and stuff and, depending on what your MOS is, I mean, you're still a part of a group and a tribe.
Speaker 1:And if you get to try to choose a career based off of money only and not what the experience and what it's going to bring you beneficially to your own mindset, it's going to kill you. And that's what did to me, which is how I eventually found police work back, like I, you know, when I transitioned back from um, from iraq and even before that I was like man, you know, I gotta I had to get a job closer to home for for a family situation and stuff like that. But I even thought about going corporate because you think you know what all I really, all I really need is just some cash. I need money, I need just something to survive and plus, hey, you know what? I was an officer, I did this, and especially guys and girls who get MBAs or whatever, all of a sudden their mind shifts into that money phase where it's not about service, it's about I just need what's good for me, I need to survive, I need cash, I want fancy things, and that's one thing I probably should have put in that book too was like you are going to go through phases, you're going to go through the phase of shit.
Speaker 1:They just took 18 months of my life, or they took five years of my life. They took four years of my life even though we all signed up for it. But it's like now I want me, me, me and a lot of us will do the me me, me thing. Then all of a sudden it gets to huh, I want to give back and you want to give back. And that's where, like the jobs, like the public service jobs, the cop jobs, the EMS jobs, even like, even doesn't even have to be like law enforcement or first responder jobs, but it's something where you give back and so you're not just need me, me, me, cash, cash, cash and materialistic. I mean, yeah, you can still do all those things as public sector and stuff, but obviously you're not going to make as much money yeah, like I mean there's a lot of great stuff with hud.
Speaker 2:I mean housing, urban development. I mean there's you can get and those are good, meaningful jobs where you can actually get out and know that you're helping people and, right, you don't have to wear a badge to do help people. So I mean there's all kinds of I mean even, like we just talked FEMA. I mean there's, you know, if you go in with the right mindset, that you know you can be that helpful person, versus I'm just trying to collect a paycheck and I'm down here I'm hating my life and banging my head on the wall. You know what's your purpose.
Speaker 1:So so when you you're like, where'd the cop thing come from, because do you have any cops in your background, or you're just like, hey, dude, it's like that movie, let's be cops one day. You're like, oh man, it'd be cool. Like me, I'm watching miami vice and going, hey, what's up? You know, yeah, like a movie I'm talking, like I'm I'm binging the first few seasons of miami vice now from the 80s. But you know what was your motivation? To jump into police work dude.
Speaker 2:So my roommate at fort lewis was a kansas city cop and uh, we got stuck doing police, you know mp being on patrol in fort Lewis and when I got done with that I was like I, if you ever try to make me a cop again, I hate it. They were, you know we were cops but we really weren't I mean like over glorified security guard. We did gate detail all the time and I mean we did patrol and but you're on post and you know DV stuff type mostly, but it's pretty controlled. But so, yeah, my roommate was a Kansas City cop and I got well, we got out and I was, after I got done with the mortgage when I killed the housing market, I started doing outside sales of payroll services and I'm like you talk about something even more mind numbing, but I was making good money. I'm like making 90 grand a year and happy with that. But I mean I was devastated.
Speaker 1:I mean, let's talk about, let's talk about like that happy, you know, there's a different and we're going to get into, believe me, we're going to get into police work and everything else, but this is that point, man, this is that that bridge point. You know, I I call it the bridge job. It's like where it's like you're just doing something to get a paycheck and man, that paycheck is good, you know, 90 grand in Kansas City or Missouri or wherever you're living.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good money.
Speaker 1:That's damn good money, especially back in 2005, 2006. Yep, and you're like huh. So what do you need? You need fulfillment, right, you need some sort of fulfillment.
Speaker 2:And again I keep going back. This is my tribe right. I had no camaraderie. I mean, I went from sports in high school, military college. You know I wasn't like me and my idiot buddies were all like motorcycle right, you know, crotch rocket idiots driving the back road. But we go get drunk and hang out and party and do all of our. I always had a group of people.
Speaker 2:Well, now I'm on outside sales, driving all by myself, spending every day alone and like my only excitement beyond just the job suck. My only excitement was finding ways to, you know, scrounge up customers easier than going up and opening a business door and getting shut down by the secretary. So I was like I do these happy hours with accountants and the lady accountants don't want to be talking about payroll because we'll get in the new, we don't need to get in the nuances of. You know they do payroll for customers but they don't want to see a hot you know attractive young lady either come in their business. So us guys would go in and we do these happy hour things and I'd let these old lady accountants grope the crap out of me and kind of pimp myself out like a Hooters waitress just to get them to give me some of their client list. But that was my source of excitement. I was like this is terrible. But again I was drawn by the money. But I had no purpose at all.
Speaker 1:You brought up one thing I never think about man, because I'm like it's not just the tribe, it's the crew of just talking straight shit. And, believe me, it's like you do it in high school. When you have friends in high school, all you do is you talk shit. You get to college is you talk shit. You get to college, you talk shit and you then what happens is like a lot of people that haven't been in the military. When you get in there, you're, you always go through some sort of experience with the people who come close to you.
Speaker 1:That just sucks the fucking life out of you like, just drains you just like it could be. You could be in a field for a week and it's just pouring rain and you just sit around. It comes to a point where you look at each other and it's the catalyst of like oh, you know just being in the suck and you're like, and then then the real shit talking starts. Then the real like, the real, like camaraderie starts, because you're sharing an experience and you have those in college and all that other stuff, but there's nothing like it, like you have had in the military. So I think when you were saying like you're being alone.
Speaker 1:It's like and I'm at that point now, and you know like I'm at this weird phase of my life where I'm like I don't even know if I have a handful of people I could hang out with at any given time. But it's like when you're out of the military and you get away from having people who are with you 24-7 or even like 18 hours out of the day, I mean you're with these people with an ungodly amount of time, sharing so much experience. And then you get into sales. You get into, like, subprime mortgages, you get into outside sales and you're like, huh, you have nothing in common with these people. Nope, yeah, I'm like, yeah, you could bitch about the old lady groping and they all have their.
Speaker 1:I mean what I'm just saying, like together, like you could go to your buddies and like, yeah, that old lady just grabbed my ass and you're like, but in general you don't have that, that team like, like, like you said, the tribe, you don't have anybody to. It's not just commiserate, commiserate with, but to share, like just life man. That some of the most deep, interesting conversations I've had with people who are just from a completely different background, completely different background, completely different spheres I mean religious, economic, anything, background but because you put that uniform on, you have that shared experience and then you learn and you like, you just, you just become like just something different man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. I mean that's exactly my same experience. I mean that's right. Even when we were getting retrained to be mps, I mean we all went in and hated each other completely. I mean it was egos and people didn't want to be there. People wanted to be there. Uh, they didn't want to get reclassed. We had, I mean, they put like maintenance guys with us, but we all bonded over. Eventually we came together and bonded. I mean that shared experience alone, beyond just the uniform. So I mean that's. I mean and I see that I've seen that time and time again, obviously throughout all my different career stops, I mean that's the stops that I didn't have, that were where I was, you know, square peg and round hole, right, and that's what the sales and stuff was for me.
Speaker 1:You know what, though? In law enforcement, you're selling. You're always talking to people, you're always selling something. You're gonna sell them a ride to jail, or you're gonna sell them something else. So you this roommate of yours like hey, bro, let's, let's do this, let's be cops. I'm already a cop, you got to do it, let's do it. And you're like okay, what's up?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, that was I. I called him up, you know, just to keep touching base, um, and I was asking him, hey, hey, what's going on? He would tell me, oh, I've got this car chase, got a foot chase. And I'm saying, okay, well, yeah, I, I went and like knocked on like 44 doors yesterday and got shut down by 44 people, like man, it was all of a sudden, you know, looking really exciting. And then you know, of course I had to bring that I was still just dating my wife, you know, still just my girlfriend at the time. So like, okay, well, now I got to convince her like, hey, is this a good idea?
Speaker 1:I think it's a great idea.
Speaker 2:But our starting pay was like 32,000 a year and you know, we're living in some crappy apartment trying to find a way to scrap money for a home, uh, you know, and down payment for a home. So we're, like you know, really saving money and I thought, okay, but it's going to make me happy and that's the key Like it's going to suck. The pay is going to suck. I mean that's a third of my. I mean I'm making a third of what I was. But you, I mean that was work. Come on, man, cops make a ton of money. You can, if you can, find a way to work a bunch of overtime and you know side gigs and all that. But then you know, and I got into, you know, eventually working 90, 95 hours a week.
Speaker 1:But then you're never home and you're missing out on all, from one, one position, like you go from the military to sales and then you go to the academy and now you're starting back. You're almost like a private again. So I mean, in law enforcement it's different.
Speaker 1:You know, my first, my first four, not much control, yeah, but it's like, yeah, you get into it. And you're like, wow, this fucking dude is treating me like shit. And you're like, who the hell are you to be treating me like shit, dude? How old have you been in that? Kick in the butt.
Speaker 2:I was 28 years old almost 29. So then I walk in and I've got. You know, my FTO is like three years younger than me and I, you know, I'm older than half of my sector and I walk in.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, what's up guys? They're like shut up, new guy, you're gonna sit down and shut up. You don't know anything. I'm like, true, I don't, and I knew the game right because I was a military guy. So I'm like, yep, it's my, I'm the new guy, it's my job to get pissed on and that's I'm gonna. I have to deal with the shit work. I'm just, it's just what it is.
Speaker 2:So I understood that part of the culture and I, the people that get in there, don't? You know, they struggle a little bit, but, um, I mean it was. It was like come on, man, I mean the Academy, right. Same way, Cause it was kind of militaristic, though they weren't like doing like you get in trouble, you're doing push-ups anyway. So it was like almost yeah, it was almost like hey we're just like, now we're.
Speaker 1:This is our way to mess with you, with the instructors, so, and you're like I gotta get in shape.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'm gonna be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean right. Too many happy hours with the, the old ladies. Uh, I'd gained a little bit of weight, so I was not quite as fit as I once was.
Speaker 1:I believe me, I know that thing. But hey, you know what, when you get there and you graduate and you get that badge on your chest now you're in a uniform, you're another paramilitary organization. Um, you go through your fto and then you're on a street for the first time. Do you remember that first night that you were like on your own?
Speaker 2:dude I put in my book. It was that it was that ingrained. Well, I put it the first and the second night totally in my mind, so much so that I put it in the book because it will stick with me forever. I mean, my hometown was about 200 people, so I was from a really small hometown. We were about an hour away from Kansas City, so I wasn't used to a lot of what I was about to experience in the inner city of Kansas City, which I mean, if you watch the news right, so we're when you look at the per capita violent crime statistics, we're always in the top 10. So it's like hustling. So you know, the first night the only thing we did was like let's drive around and find the hospitals and then, let's make sure you can get to every hospital without looking at a map.
Speaker 2:I mean, we didn't have smartphones and all that stuff so you had to memorize it. We had already memorized the streets, east to west, north to south, what hundred block they are. And so he's like, okay, let's drive somewhere. And then you tell me then you drive the fastest route to the hospital because if I get shot right now can you save my life by getting me to the hospital faster. And that was first night. Second night he's like, okay, my fto is like I'm riding with you but I'm not here, so you're gonna handle everything. I'm just gonna be quiet and evaluate you.
Speaker 2:My first, my first call, was a rape call. I was like, oh my god, you know you get nervous, right, because that's a big deal. Yep to woman's life. You know her life is about to change. It has changed now for like the worst. And so like the jitters of being a male with that and like want to take it really serious and do all you can because the most violated thing that could ever happen to her just happened. And I remember I was just completely flustered and like freaked out the whole drive there to go meet with this woman, so man it.
Speaker 1:It messed me up pretty good on that one um and then you know when you, when you went to talk to this woman you know I love there's a lot of these classes now because they're doing like trauma-informed policing they're being. They're teaching you how to talk to victims and not be like a cop, but your mind had to be in cop mode.
Speaker 2:Totally. I had a female sergeant who was the best boss I've ever had in my life and she, of course, she was really in tuned on the training of recruits and so she stops on almost as many calls as she could ever get to from all the recruits in the area. And she yanked me away and was like get over there and talk to your backup car. And she took over because I had this woman sitting down and I stood over top of her power stance, my hand I'm taking notes because I didn't want to miss anything. Now, for my own justification, I was like I want to catch every detail she says because that could make the difference on do we find the guy, do we not find the guy? And I didn't want to miss anything, but I was.
Speaker 2:You know, here's this I would. You know it's about 175 pound. You know, five foot 10 guy standing over tall, this hundred pound woman towering over her with this power stance. I mean it was like and my backup guy? He's like hey, you idiot. And smack, smack me in the back of the head. He's like do you think this woman wants to be re-traumatized with you standing over her like this? He's like look out, look how Deb's doing it, so she's sitting down next to her. I was like, I mean just a simple little things like that. But you know I'm a newbie and I'm glad they yanked me when they did because you know ultimately can make the difference, uh, on how her experience you know, changes from there. But man, I mean I was really embarrassed on that one and it stuck with me.
Speaker 1:I mean that was not even embarrassing, man, it's like you know and I was writing some notes here because I'm thinking about it I'm like it's you don't know. Yeah, you know you could sell and we brought up before you could sell. You know you could probably sell a pen to a fucking to anybody. But when you're, when you're trying to be, have emotions, and you're trying to deal with someone who's had the absolute worst day of their life, someone you know and God man, this just drives me nuts. When someone rapes a woman just drives me nuts. When someone rapes a woman, it's not like they're stealing their purse. They are stealing something that they will never get back. And then, all of a sudden, the next person that comes into their life is a cop man. It's someone who's like and you know what. It depends on how they've always experienced, had experience with the cops. What if this is their first experience with a cop and all they know is they're an authority figure that takes freedom away from people? I mean, that might be their mentality. All of a sudden, you're here, you're standing over there and you're like this position of power and you try to get them to open up. And that's where the empathy pack comes in and that's where a different type of selling comes in. This is where you are selling your, your empathy to have them give you information so you can go and get that scumbag piece of shit that fucking did this to them. Yeah, and it's just something I wish there was a way to to teach that at the academy, and I wish there was a way that you can ingrain that in people.
Speaker 1:I think even if people are going to college and they're going to get into criminal justice or criminology or law enforcement or whatever their damn degree says, that says they want to get into this career field where you put a badge on your chest that they have some sort of training like the trauma-informed policing, some sort of empathy training where it's not just because you know, you know what just as well as I do when you go through the academy it's like it's shoot, don't shoot, shoot, don't shoot. It's like get on the ground. It's like this uh, you know, shut off the motor, come out with your hands up, and it's always it's never about hey, you know what, how are you doing? And if they do, it's like three hours, it's like a two-hour block of instruction, yeah, and it's that there's nothing to have nothing to do with empathy, and my viewpoint on this is too. It's like it's not just for victims.
Speaker 1:If you're empathetic and you're going to try to develop sources in the field, like you know, you're driving around, you're, you're meeting people, the community, and you're that guy or girl who has their Oakley blades or some bullshit on all the time and you're, like you know, arms crossed and you don't want to talk because you're the cop, you're the popo, and you don't have any empathy and you don't have any conversational skills, you don't have any people skills. How are you ever going to develop a source of information? How are you ever going to know what's going on in your community? A source of information?
Speaker 2:How are you ever going to know what's going on in your community? Yeah, and they try to implement a lot of that stuff, forcing us. I say forcing because some people didn't want. They wanted to stay in their car, they just wanted to pull cars over, but they made it a mandatory thing. Every shift you have a neighborhood walk, you get out of your car, people can see out of your car, interact with the neighborhoods. Of course, out of your car, people can see out of your car interact with the neighborhoods.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, of course, the hard part becomes if you're on the overnight shift, working from 10 at night until eight in the morning. You know, and it's winter time in missouri, like where the you know, it's zero degrees right now. So, yeah, who are you going to find out there? Uh, doing stuff. So I think, and I think a lot of places are making big strides these days on that uh, because beyond just, it makes good sense. I think some of this newer generation of people you know are so addicted to their phones they have a hard time conversing with each other. Right? If me and you were sitting at a table, we could just be staring at our phones the whole time, or even texting each other versus having this kind of conversation.
Speaker 1:We could literally be sitting in the same room texting each other.
Speaker 2:Conversation skills are like dramatically decreased in the last decade and we're seeing that with a lot of police officers too. Like because right, you're a great, you have to be a great salesman. You walk into a case where you can't even just arrest somebody to solve the problem. You have to talk sense in a solution and sell it to these people who are arguing to make us. You don't have to go back on seven, nine, one, one calls to the same house and like feel like you're, you know, banging your head against the wall.
Speaker 1:So and you brought up a word before um, you were like we had to do mandatory walk around the neighborhood. Listen, man, you, you work in 10, 12, 16 hour shifts. You know you had to work overtime. You're trying to catch up on your paperwork and all of a sudden, like man, I got to do that damn mandatory hour and you learn to hate it. And then you pull back in, you withdraw All that empathy and all that people skills.
Speaker 2:becomes disgruntled yeah, and I think too, beyond just that though it's it's, you get a certain type of people that can just you know, and it's what I, when I speak to people, I speak on what you get addicted to the adrenaline, so something that it doesn't bring you adrenaline, it's going to put you in a depressive state.
Speaker 2:So people start to fear right, you know to, really beyond just hating it. Making it mandatory has a bad stigma to it anyway. But if you take and say, hey, instead of going to stop at a bunch of cars or answering a bunch of crazy 911 calls, we're going to make you get out and do something that puts you at a danger risk of a two. That's going to put you in a hell of a depressive state and you're not going to want to do it anyway. But, as you even pointed out, though, those are the places and the times where you can really get some good intel from people in the neighborhood, start getting a source that actually leads you to the stuff that will get you your adrenaline and make a difference in the community. So I mean it's.
Speaker 1:I think we can become too short sighted on what the real benefits are of something like that and not look at the big picture. So when you, when you talk about patrol, I think everybody you know, man, one thing I've always learned is like being a mentor and being talking to kids and talking to college kids and vets and everybody else about when they want to get into law enforcement. They're always like I want to be on swat or I want to be in specialized units, but they never want to work patrol. I mean once in a while you'll find a few people are like ah, patrol is like that's what I want to do. I want to be on the street, I want to just be able to drive around, but everybody wants to be in a specialized unit. Now, how long were you on patrol before you jumped into doing like drugs and detective?
Speaker 2:work Six years, oh wow, so I think at an average burnout, and I think that plays into a lot of it too, right? So average burnout used to be about five to seven years and now we're seeing officers getting burned out in year three and five, you know, asked to do more with less mission creep. Same with, you know, navy seals and stuff where those guys get asked to do way more than what their actual you know, specialty is so, uh, we're seeing that.
Speaker 2:But um, uh, yeah, I mean was year six, I was burnt out and where I was the good officer and I was that grumpy veteran that I met day a. You know, like ours is a bigger agency where you have a lot of crazy, cool, fun, specialized units, but you get really shorthanded. You're running 40 and 50 calls a night and it's always handling DVs and disturbances that are. You go there and it's like this is the third time I'm here and people start getting burned out of the. This isn't what I imagined. You know they're short, really shorthanded, so self-initiated activity is ceased, so there's no stopping cars and doing what you classize the fun stuff. So uh, but you see, the specialized units, like the units I was in man like we're not answering calls. We were, you know, I was uc. So like I, I had a, you know beater van, and I'm out there chasing all these high profile people which you only hear about in the news, like, hey, this guy got arrested and he's the serial killer.
Speaker 2:Well, you didn't know that me and my squad have been following this dude 24, 7 for three weeks so and then they find out about like, oh my gosh, that's the coolest stuff and that's actually what drew me to the work was my buddy had been doing it, a different buddy had been doing it and he's like, dude, I'm leaving undercover work, you can take my spot. And I was like, sign me up. So, because I was drawn to that same cool stuff, but I was also, you know, beyond that I use it when I talk the same word as your book pivot. When you get in a stale place, you either pivot or you step up. So pivot is a change in your direction to bring you out of a slump, and then a step up, of course, right, you're just going to take riskier and riskier moves, um, to bring you out of any kind of depressive state or burnout. And that's, those are the ways you avoid burnout, you know, especially in law enforcement.
Speaker 1:You know, when I think about burnout and it's like really like you always get these like oh, light bulb moment. But you're like, you know, you talk about three to five year burnout, you talk about six year burnout, eight year burnout. A lot of that has to do with management. We know that you get tired of the same bullshit. But then it's also the day in and day out monotony followed by this adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline, where your body always wants to burn off all the excess energy through whatever means necessary. But you know, when you talk about burnout there's also the post-traumatic stress of the day in and day out and like just not knowing, the never knowing if this is going to be it. And you think about they're always telling cops like later on in our career, like later on, you know, they never say, as you're going two, three years and like, oh, you should maybe talk to someone about that, maybe you should have some sort of counseling.
Speaker 1:And we all know counseling sometimes just doesn't work because you know, try to talk to a civilian who's never really experienced anything in their life. You know my first four or five counselors that I went to through over the years and I've had to rotate through them to try to find one. That was good. We're like 22 year old grad students, 20 to 26 year old, anything, but sometimes that's where these like peer counselors come in. That's where they should have some sort of network, not really like an AA, because, hey look, not everybody's addicted but you are addicted to something called adrenaline, but maybe some sort of peer support groups, that where you can go.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a really cool organization called Reps for Responders that I they're on social media, that you know. I try to talk to those guys once in a while, but they're always like every Sunday they have a virtual meeting or we get together and they talk. It's almost like an AA thing. And a lot of them have fought addiction god knows so many cops and have fought addiction, whether it's alcohol and drugs, even, um, sex addiction, everything you can imagine. But maybe not. Maybe not get to that point where you are addicted, but there is almost like what they used to call the choir practice.
Speaker 1:But more like yeah, but more structured. So it's not just a bitch session. Yeah, towards it, you could actually work through things and have that camaraderie.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, with my speaking right, I work with. Who was my therapist? And, like you, it took me several runs of ones that I thought I didn't know what to think of therapy, so I just went along with whatever I'd gotten and I thought, okay, well, this person just lets me do what I want and I you know it's a paid best friend. I just pay a bunch of money and get to talk. I think venting is doing it, but it's not Like Sid has to be structured and intentional. So, dr Prohaska, she was my therapist and amazing, amazing woman. She focuses, like all of her attention on helping first responders. You know, overcome it. And now her new mission is, you know, similar to what you talked about is what if we can keep people from getting into this feeling? And then this stressed out PTSD, because fixing it is hard. And she's like I'm tired of fixing it, like, yeah, I can't always fix it, but I'm I'm tired of seeing the revolving door. What if there's a way that we can stop it? And so she's got this company, tactical longevity. I recommend people look into it. I mean, it's where there is a. She has an app and a whole program of like, hey, an app and a whole program of like, hey, let's train people to not get into that zone so that if I ever do have to fix them, it's easier and the hope is that you don't ever need fixing.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're going to experience some really traumatic stuff. There's no stopping that right. I mean, our world and society is a really dangerous place. We have a really dangerous job as first responders and military people. It's unfortunate. That's just an aspect of it, but there's ways that we can do better. You know, training and stuff beforehand and set the right mindset before we do all this and get ourselves, you know, you know, tied up. So I mean it. It would have changed me. I mean, I, that's one of my downfalls, was that not? I mean, I got shot, but that was, you know, only part of my, only part of my injury.
Speaker 1:But leading up to that was you know, you said it a million times adrenaline junkie.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And anybody who's been in law enforcement knows that there is just this feeling you get, man. You know search warrants coming up, you're going to put hands on, you're going to do something. It's the unknowing, but the knowing, knowing that it could be, really just you never know what's gonna happen, so you prepare mentally. But just that feeling, man, that just that that gut feeling that you know you're all geared up, you're ready to go, you're like, yeah, well, the scary part is when you don't get that feeling anymore and you're just doing stuff and you don't feel it anymore and you get numb and that's where I found myself.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was I was never the SWAT guy. I mean, when I found undercover work, I knew that, that I found a niche and I was freaking good at it. And eventually I mean at first, yeah, it's like nerve wracking as shit, and it was like buying a crack rock off some you know prostitute off the street, which was like not dangerous, but it was exhilarating. And eventually, though, I mean like I was going in some really bad dudes places and houses and buys guns are always, you know, guns in my face almost getting killed and it was like I would laugh about it. So I've got a, I've got an audio from one of my buys, where it was a knife and a gunfight during my buy, and I eventually get the dude out of the house and I'm laughing with him like, oh dude, I didn't want to get in between you two, but man, this is crazy. I'm laughing.
Speaker 2:I mean that was a 10 on a life threatening situation. Yeah, I registered as a four because I lost it all and that's I didn't. I couldn't even realize and see that either until years later. So, like when that's. You know, one of the biggest things like educating people on this is like, man, you got to be able to do proper self checks and realize when you're out of bounds and like, even if you try to correct me at that point I was so far gone I couldn't even see it, even if you pointed out to me.
Speaker 1:so you know you let yourself go, yeah, because, because you're like. But then what's the point? You know you get to a certain point in your career where you're like am I gonna do this forever?
Speaker 2:I would have until I got killed.
Speaker 2:I mean that was, and that's the problem is taking risks where I eventually was gonna get killed and almost did um. But I don't think people, especially when you get that wound up and it's not been on law enforcement. I've got a, you know my one of my best friends in high school. He was in Iraq three times and Afghanistan one and he's, you know, really struggling but the army forced him out. He was like dude, I was just going to keep signing up for every deployment. I was going to do this forever. Like how long do you think you can carry that on? But I I couldn't make that same inference about me and my career. It's kind of weird. Right so dysfunction, can't see dysfunction.
Speaker 1:So never it can't, and you know because you get. You get the tunnel vision. Hey look, you can go into like the most dynamic entry in the world. You can see everything that's going on. You might be the best cop in the world, but when it comes to like what is going on in your life, you have tunnel vision. You were like you could you do your job? You come home, maybe have a few drinks, hang out with the wife here and there, hang out the girlfriend boy for whatever, and then you go back to do it all again next day. Then the weekend comes.
Speaker 2:You're like shit, I can't wait to get back to work just don't have to deal with this bullshit, you know yeah, and that was the problem with eventually with my work, right as we didn't get weekends off either, so we would work, you know, six, seven days a week, and then, even when I would come home for dinner, I'd get my wife. My phone would ring and she's like let me guess you got to go back in yeah I do so eight o'clock at night.
Speaker 2:I'm going back in and coming back home at three in the morning just to turn around do it again at seven and I loved it, loved every minute of it and I was like if I had to sit and take vacation. I was like, oh my gosh, oh yeah, driving me nuts especially if you're putting together a case like a real case yeah, you, you know it's just when you.
Speaker 1:But then you get around the people who you're working with and you, I loved, love, love, love being the reliable one where you could call me on a Saturday night and back then it was like the next I was getting that little chirp on two am, two am and you're like let's go bro, are we doing?
Speaker 2:man? What do you got going on? I don't care. Yeah, I was. I would get ridiculed, they're like, so my undercover name was ricky and I would be the one blast and everyone. Hey guys, I got this set up like, oh, let me guess this is ricky shit. Like it totally is. Like I know, but I need like two people to come in cover me on this deal. Uh, you know, I've got this thing going on like dude, this can wait. I'm like no, no, no, no, like I need you don't understand. Like I need this. So, and that was you know I would talk as many people as I could into the pit with me. Uh, you know, unfortunately so I was, you know, I was that far.
Speaker 1:You know you're running that loose yeah, I'm looking at, like when you emailed me like, turns out getting shot wasn't the worst, what was it? The rest of it? Uh, that used to be the title of my presentation turns out getting shot isn't the worst.
Speaker 2:What was it the rest of it? That used to be the title of my presentation Turns out getting shot isn't the worst thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and that's the thing is like you got shot, man. The worst shit that could happen to you happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, six times on AK-47. So I'm lucky to be alive 7.62x39mm will shred any vest out there unless you have plates on yeah, I was a uc so I had short, I had baggy shorts and, uh, a t-shirt, so, and no gun, uh. So, yeah, uh, it took me a long time to realize and a lot of, a lot of therapy, years of going two and three and four times a week to really figure it like getting shot was what saved my life because I was really going down a bad path.
Speaker 1:So the addiction to the adrenaline- now, were you doing anything like drugs drinking or anything else like that? I mean, what was the path? Yeah, booze man drinking, yep yep.
Speaker 2:So, um, lucky enough that I, you know, I held on to a little shred of my morals with and we were allowed to drink on duty, though, like, as you see, like, hey, man, like you got to have some booze on your breath. Well, you know, it also helps taking the edge off if you did have anything going on. So, um, but, uh, yeah, it was. Uh, alcohol, was. It's a quick, easy button and it's it's a way to fall asleep. Where you don't fall asleep hard enough to have nightmares and dreams, I found I was like man, this is perfect.
Speaker 1:So, uh, and then what was your booze of choice? Were you drinking beer or liquor?
Speaker 2:I quit the I quit beer because it was. It took too much to drink it to get uh, to get drunk.
Speaker 1:So, uh, I know you're a rum guy uh well, I was a rum guy, I was a rum guy.
Speaker 2:So, uh, mine was bourbon. So I did buffalo trace when you could find it real easily, and then it got a little tougher to find.
Speaker 2:So, uh, you know, four rays, four roses are maker's mark, that's, I would I would have a flask at work and they're like I'd drink it up, drink it up, I'd refill it, and you know, not get drunk but get enough where you know took the edge off. And then the moment we said, hey, we're calling it for the night, I'd pound it and then come home and then fill a whole cup of a Yeti cup. So you couldn't. So my wife couldn't tell, she couldn't tell how much I was drinking or how strong, I mixed it with anything or what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, back in the day my thing was rum and I used to think I needed it in order to get by. But my my problem too was I was on um SSRIs, I was on Lexapro for years, so I would. I would get to a point where and this is in the two thousands, you know, 2011, 2012, I was going through a lot of anxiety a ton, and then, for like I don't know how long after that, I was drinking, like you know, a ton of rum. A ton, and it wasn't just like rum, it was like crack and it was like 151. It was anything you can get in there. But I got to a point where I was like I can't do it anymore, man, and I would get so, so, so the booze and Lexapro would give me this depression that I would never, ever wish on anybody, where it would be like two or three days in bed type depression and I'm trying to be a functional dad and be a functional husband even me out. But then things would happen where I would have even too much anxiety that I'd try to use booze to even it out, and then I would just get this I used to call it like a dark sponge in my head where it felt like there was a sponge, but it was like a cloud and it would just absorb all the happiness. And if I could just pull out that sponge I would get all my happiness back. Um, but then I realized after a while that the booze didn't work anymore. So I think it was about, you know, I all the bad decisions I've ever made in my life and things I've done, um, always had something to do with booze. So I've really I cut, I really went like straight sober for a long time. Now I'll have an occasional drink here and there, but I stay away from rum for one. I'll drink some bourbon here and there. I'll have a bourbon or two, maybe a beer or two, but I cannot go down that path again. And then I'm going to do a podcast with a psychiatrist and we're going to talk about SSRIs and law enforcement and Alexa pros and everything.
Speaker 1:I've had to make some critical decisions over the past six, eight months, ten months, and I wanted to be able to have a clear mind to do them. So I weaned myself off of the Alexa pro, the generic X-Scap I can't pronounce it. So I weaned myself off of the Alexa pro, the, the, you know the generic X scalp, I can pronounce it. So I weaned myself off of it. Um, and I tell everybody, if you ever, ever, ever, want to get off of these, these um, anxiety meds and everything, you cannot go cold Turkey. You cannot go cold Turkey. I say that again do not go cold Turkey because your mind is at a certain point. And when I weaned myself off it it was almost like for that first two weeks I would get these, like it almost felt like electric shocks, like electroshocks, like when I turn my head. It was like just weird anxiety. So I really I can't wait to do that episode. It's going to probably record it in February. I'm setting up now, but nice, yeah, so same deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, court in february. I'm setting up now, but nice, yeah, mine was virtually so same deal. Yeah, warn me like drilled it in my head and I'm glad you said it a few times. Right, you have same as it ramps up coming in, you have to ramp down and and wean yourself off. It's, there's no cold turkey. It's just not gonna.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna end well now, before you got a shot and we'll get into you getting shot did you wean yourself the booze or were you booze up all the way up until that point?
Speaker 2:um, actually, you know what my drinking was? I, I wouldn't have clare clare wouldn't have classified it as a problem at that time. Uh, I mean, obviously it was, but it wasn't to the excess that eventually became. So my bigger problem was the adrenaline addiction, and so I would go into buys and I would create conflict where there shouldn't have been conflict. And that was my booze, if you will, that was my drug of choice. And doing more and more.
Speaker 2:And when people would come and say, all right, hey, we got this by, we need or we need some this case done, I was always like, let me do it, I'm going to do it and I'm gonna do it my way, which was always the most there's. There's more than one way to skin a cat and I was always choosing the most dangerous way, and so we always like to call ourselves like the multi agency help button. So I've worked with HSI, atf, you know, us Marshals and FBI on different cases, so you know to be there dedicated, you see, on a lot of these cases. And when you go and do stuff with the feds, like they slow things down, they have a big, huge briefings. You have a huge briefing packet and you do all this stuff, everybody gets to see everybody else and for me that was like was like guys, what's taking so long? Let's, let's hurry up. Like I was already getting amped and juiced, I'm like I'm trying to get.
Speaker 1:I gotta tell you a quick joke there about the feds. I was a fed yeah yeah, my buddy and I will always call them the bullshit ass feds, and that's because it's shit, just like this bullshit ass feds man, even me, and being a fed, I say it yeah, that's yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, brother, go on about these big long ass briefings, because, yeah, they take forever, man, and they do and they're, and there's a good purpose behind it, but for me, I all I could see is like you're taking my drug away, like I'm already getting amped up and if I don't get to do something soon I'm gonna start feeling withdrawals, uh, and then so that's what kind of you know fueled my reckless behavior was doing that stuff, and that, you know, eventually that's what led to me. I mean, I made some reckless moves the day I got shot, which I understand fully. Right, the guy that shot me is the guy to blame for me getting shot.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go into it. Like what? Was this a fed thing, or was this a local thing?
Speaker 2:or so I eventually got transitioned over to what's called our gun squad. So it's a mix with atf, um and kansas city police department and the atf does this in several different cities and we focus on violent gun crime in kansas city. So I would be the. You know everybody had a specialty. I was the undercover. You need me to go buy a gun or large-scale dope for these long-term things? That was me. We had a social media guy who could track all these people and know all the networks. We had our cell phone and GPS guys. So everybody had their own specialty. But we got so damn good Right, our, our chief of police dictated that we were going to go after every homicide suspect within an hour of the homicide happening in Kansas City.
Speaker 2:So you know, anywhere between 150 and 180 homicides a year. We're boots on the ground an hour within the shooting and you know, ok, we think there's a homicide, we're out and we're tracking who we think the suspect is. Are we going to try to get back, be able to buy the homicide gun? We start arresting people buying dope to try to get be able to buy the homicide gun. We start arresting people buying dope and trying to get people to flip and that's what we were doing. So this guy his name was Marlon Mack. He was Oklahoma's most violent robber. He had moved up from Oklahoma. He had, you know, been robbing places and he ended up robbing a chicken and fish shop and this grad student, our local university, missouri Kansas city. He was working there and he came in to rob the place and the guy did everything right His hands up, open the drawer, have all the money and Marla Mac ended up shooting him. He tried to run out and he stood over top of him and executed him for no reason. So we're tracking this guy and I'd been buying a couple of years before. I'd been buying heroin from his girlfriend. I'm like we know this dude, we know the girlfriend, where she's living, so we do all of our you know crazy cool. You know investigative techniques and cameras and all these things we're doing and we're had a hard time finding him. But we ended up tracking him down.
Speaker 2:Uh, on a sunday morning, july 15th 2018 um, we found him. Uh, he was driving around really crazy, checking his tail. But we're working on a skeleton crew because we were only supposed to do surveillance only, like we dictated. We hadn't had a day off in four weeks. And our tack, our SWAT guys hadn't had a day off, and even longer. So they gave us two SWAT guys. Hadn't had a day off and even longer. So they gave us two SWAT guys and we had a team of like five or six dudes and we followed him to this hotel and man it just we couldn't really get a good eyes on it. It's right by the Arrowhead Stadium, right by the Chiefs Stadium. We just couldn't get a good eye what room he's in, cause the thought was we put him down in this hotel room, we'll come back tomorrow morning with a full SWAT team and like take this dude off.
Speaker 2:And uh, I was like you know what, send me in. That's my job, right? I'm the UC guy, I'm just going to. This is just easy. I'm going to get out on foot. I'm going to go to the manager's office. I was going to rent a room, hang there all night if I had to, um, but I would also see if I could, you know, stay in there long enough to see what room he's coming in and out of.
Speaker 2:And when I walked into manager's office, like boom, he's right there waiting, oh shit for the manager. So like he wouldn't even move his legs. So I had to like step over his legs to step in the door of this and it's like it's a crap hole, motel, right. The manager's office is like 10 foot by 10 foot, maybe Bolt-proof glass all around. So I was like ding this guy's in a cage Like he can't go anywhere. So I start calling in like hey, you two guys, our SWAT guys, come in. You could just like surround and call out this guy, wait him out forever and our communications dropped so nobody caught any of this stuff. So it took me about a minute to get my phone back up and get ahold of him and say like hey, come, get him.
Speaker 2:By that time he made it to his car, right as they screamed up to the back bumper. So, uh, I'm watching this thing from like 20 feet away, cause the parking lot's tiny, it holds like five cars and you have to almost do like a three-point, like austin powers turn, to be able to get out. Um, but man, yeah, he uh looked, looked right back at him and he kind of like had a weird look on his face, like really calm. He sat down in his car, slowly, shut his door and they're doing the whole felony car check. So it's like, hey, it's just gonna go on, his passenger gets out, hands up and is not even not even acknowledging their existence. He's just gonna go on, his passenger gets out, hands up and is not even, not even acknowledging their existence. He's just like slow walking right.
Speaker 2:So I, first time in forever that I'd ever worked undercover work man I. I ran up to my SWAT guy and I was like, hey, dude, I need a gun. Like surely, swat guys, you guys got guns everywhere. They're like ricky, what get the fuck out of here, man? And at that point Marlon steps out of his car with this AK pistol and just barrages the shit out of us. So he charged the car and so we displaced back behind the Explorer and tried to make it around. And Mike was the driver of our police car and he got shot like four times and him and his partner start trying to flank him.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in the middle of this little tiny parking lot with not that a vest would do anything, we both know that. But you know, I've got no gun, nothing. And so I'd gotten hit twice in my left knee, right out the gate, man. So my leg was pretty trashed and it was almost like, uh, you know, if you've ever seen a bad deer hunter shoot a deer, unfortunately in the leg.
Speaker 2:So that was me hopping and running away, uh, as he chased me through the parking lot. So he ended up firing at me like 22 times, got me six. But uh, I, I, it was like intentional thinking as I ran, it was almost like when I would play, uh, you know, with we actually dangerously as a kid in the neighborhood. We would play with BB guns, like war. So you run if somebody is shooting at you, you run in a zigzag pattern and that's what I did, just enough. So he caught me my right leg twice, my left knee twice, um, he caught my forearm and then my uh left humerus broke my arm. So luckily it didn't blow any of my appendages off, but you know, pretty close to it so what happened to him?
Speaker 2:he got away right there. Um, as you know, as mike and his partner were trying to displace and run around, he jumped back in his car and just backed and pushed the police car out of the way and drove off and of course, our guys followed him. He went to, uh, abandoned house. Um, you know a couple, he, he dished his car, ran across the interstate 70 and then went to this abandoned house and he holed up and uh, you know, really, it was a quick thinking from our analyst who was running our radio and she would always do our, you know, if we're out in the field. She was running license plates and doing all of our background stuff and she's, you know, a whiz at what she does. She happened to be working. She started making notifications before anything Like, hey, get in here.
Speaker 2:So people came in. I mean, it was a Sunday at 11 o'clock in the morning, get in here. So people came in. I mean, it was a Sunday at 11 o'clock in the morning, everybody starts coming in and a team of guys or some citizens said, hey, looking for a guy with an AK 47. He just went in that house, yeah, yeah. So it had been a little bit since that guy had seen him go in there.
Speaker 2:So they thought, okay, he's kind of making moves Like he's trying to get back to his girlfriend's house. And uh, they thought, well, let's just sweep this house real quick. It's all burned out, abandoned. Um, and it said they were. They got a shield and started working towards the door. Uh, he started raining down shots on him. So it was about an hour hour and a half of shootout with him, um, several hundred rounds between them all, and he shot another officer. So me, mike and my buddy buck all got shot that day. But uh, so another officer got shot and when he was getting low on ammo he kicked the back door open and came out scarface style, uh, spraying the perimeter. And um, yeah, obviously you know you have to do what you do. At that point and he succumbed to whatever bullet wounds how many ever number he got.
Speaker 1:So, fuck man. So when you get shot and you're like huh, this sucks, I mean I mean serious, I mean what, what goes through your like I've never been shot. Um, I didn't know You're my man. I mean I man, I mean I didn't know it at first it's, that's a big ass round, man.
Speaker 2:A 760 by 39 is a big ass round I felt the one that hit, the first one that hit my right calf, and I'd already been shot in the left knee and I didn't even know it. And so when I got away around this privacy fence, I start checking the important stuff my chest and my crotch I'm like, okay, I'm good. And I remember, looking down at my right calf I was like, okay, there's, you know, there's some blood there, but it's not that bad. I thought maybe, maybe it like kicked up a rock or something. So I took a step and my left leg buckled.
Speaker 2:I had like, look down, I'm like this is weird, like what? I don't feel any pain. And I looked down and I was like, oh boy, that's not, you know, because I had really baggy shorts. So I like pull the shorts up, like this is bad. So the guy that had dropped me off he had screamed up and you know was like dude, get in, get in, get in. I'm like I'm shot, like darn it. So I get in his car and he's like we're going straight to the hospital, like whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, hold up. Like just take me to my car, you get back in it. I promise I'll go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're in shock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, 100%, had no clue what was going on. But even crazier is when we start driving towards the hospital was the same time that Marlon pulled out of the hotel drive and I was like dude, dude, that's his car right there, pull like, give me your gun, pull up next to him, I'm just gonna execute the shit out of him, like that was my plan. He's so brian, and the guy was driving. He's like yeah, ricky, we're going to the hospital, we're not doing that son of a gun. So, um, all of our go bag stuff was in the trunk of this. You know, piece of crap, chevy cruze that can't go over 50 miles an hour apparently. Uh, so I like to make homemade tourniquets, tie them on myself, um, you know, on the way there. So I'm like I'm starting to look. I'm like dude, like I'm shot more than once. He's like it's okay, dude, it's okay we're, we're just gonna go to the hospital. I'm like, yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:But I mean I felt like the burning sensation and, uh, I was more mad. Uh, if anything, though, like I'm clearly shocked, but I was. I felt like I was on the playground and I got punched in the face and I didn't ever get a chance to punch the dude back out. So I was like, dude, I promise you I'm good, like let's just keep. Because at that point we could hear marlon ditched his car and he's on foot running. I was like, dude, I promise you I'm good, like I'll just stay in the car, just give me another gun and like put us on a perimeter somewhere. So, um, you know, it took even after a couple hours sitting in the hospital before I realized the gravity of you know what my injuries really were physically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, when you get hit that way and it's devastating, even one of those rounds. But imagine like six of them. I mean you don't have to imagine, but I'm just saying people out there. Imagine six of them. All of a sudden you're here and you're in this hospital and everybody else is in a fight and all you want to be is in the fight and your mind is still in the fight, you're still in shock, and but then you're like huh, what about your family, man? What happened next? That's what I'm thinking. I'm like, once you have a little time, your adrenaline starting to burn off and you're like well, my leo family's out there. They're all still getting shot up and doing this and that and everything. You want to be with them, but where's your support network at this time?
Speaker 2:dude, I felt you want to talk about blame and guilt. I'm the one that started this. Right, this was surveillance. Only, I called the audible, I made them come in, I got them shot. You know, I well, you, you want to talk about a piece of the blame pie. I took every fucking piece of it and I, I took, I took that and I felt so much shame and guilt, especially when I heard Buck got shot, because you know how it is right. Oh, someone still got shot. Well, how bad is it? People had already texted my high school buddy's, also a cop. They texted him and said, hey, cartwright's dead, he got shot and he's dead. I mean, people were already hearing that I got shot and I was dead.
Speaker 2:So I'm hearing Buck is not good and I'm like like man and you talk, I mean, I was, that was a spiral for me. And then so brian, the guy that drove me, he, he, he's like dude. Let me have your phone, I'm gonna call your wife. I'm like dude, bad idea, all right, I'm just pretty, pretty calm about all this stuff. I'm kind of laughing like that's just a terrible idea, brian, don't do that. I said get a hold of my old boss, deb, my, my you know old patrol boss. And uh, get a hold of deb, old boss, deb, my old patrol boss. And I said, get a hold of Deb. She loves my wife to death. My wife loves her to death. That's who you need to call to get a hold of my wife for this.
Speaker 2:But, as it turns out, my wife one of her really good friends, her husband's one of our elite SWAT guys. We call them SNU tech, our street narcotics unit tech. They're like, if you will, our navy seals of tech guys. Those are the guys when stuff goes bad, they're not doing surrounding call outs, they're kicking the door in and they're coming in to save your ass. And those who always protected us. And so they all were coming in, because mike was one of those guys, you know, they're the best of our best, and so their entire team, who hadn't had a day off. Now they're feeling guilty too because they, like, they decided to take off and this is what happened.
Speaker 2:So, uh, but his wife is friends with my wife and my buddy and uh, so she knew. So she called my wife. I was like, hey, I'm so sorry, I'm coming over, I'm gonna get the girls, my wife's. Like, what the hell are you talking about? She had no clue. And then brian calls her. She's like hold on, hold on. I'm gonna switch over real quick. He's like, hey, everything's okay, he's fine, he's alive.
Speaker 2:You just imagine the panic, right I mean my wife very emotional anyway, sweetest woman in the world and she's and nobody will tell her what happened. Her friend won't tell her, brian wouldn't tell her exactly what happened or how bad I am. She didn't know what she was walking into. Police car comes and picks her up, brings her to the hospital and they've got me laying in the same bed that I came in and laid on in the triage.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're all bloody and shit I'm all bloody.
Speaker 2:They've got my wounds exposed because you know they're like well, we've salined and rinsed them out, we've stopped the bleeding. Let's wait until we get surgeons here and let's figure shit out. So here I am. I mean I can see my tendons, you can see my kneecap is all crooked, it's bad. And she walks into it has a complete, terrible panic attack. And that spiraled me at that point Because at first I was like joking with people, letting them know I'm okay. There's a couple of pictures of me thumbs up and smiling and it broke my heart and I start realizing, you know, the gravity of what I've been doing and that it doesn't just affect me, because I think that was a thing I had been doing for a long time. It's like I didn't think about it. You can't think about your wife and kids while you're doing really dangerous shit, right? Because if you do, you won't be able to do it and do it effectively and you can maybe make mistakes and that gets you hurt or killed, because in this line of work those were mistakes now?
Speaker 1:did you have kids back then too, or?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh shit. So when I got shot at, my oldest was eight, my youngest was five, so, and you know they, all they ever knew was you know, dad is ricky. So I don't even think they even knew what my real name was. Uh, I don't even think they even knew what my real name was. Uh, I don't think they realized brent was my first name but uh they knew me as ricky, long hair, greasy, uh, you know, terrible looking.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but they're at that weird point where they really don't have any idea what's going on when dad's in a hospital, you know yeah, I, I kept begging.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey, can you, you know, can you bring my girls to me, can you get me my girls? And they, uh, my wife's like hey, let's just let some stuff. Cool. They brought them eventually that night. But, like I, for all the times that I've done all kinds of crazy stuff and, you know, didn't think about my family. That's all I could think about. I just, you know, wanted some kind of like calm normalcy. Uh, but I wascy, but I was just in a terrible place and my wife could see it and she's like let's just hold on, they don't need to be in this madness, let's not traumatize them just yet.
Speaker 1:So, literally, the smoke settled, he's dead. You're in a bed Incredible guilt. You're going to be stuck there for a while and we know it's almost like a jail cell being in a damn bed, because in a way it's almost worse because you can't even get up to move and walk and clear your head. You're stuck there, you're laying in this bed and you're like. You know you got the people that show up here and there, but how long were you in the hospital?
Speaker 2:for Six, you know you got the people that show up here and there. But how long were you in hospital? For Six and a half days, okay. And they finally released me so and yeah, so they cleared people out of rooms. They put us three in a room side by side, so, and then we put a guard and somebody with me 24-7.
Speaker 2:I eventually canceled all. I was in such a guilt-ridden spot. I canceled all visitors. I was like like, hey, I don't, I don't want anybody in here besides my family. If you're not my family, I'm sorry, go away. I'm tired of.
Speaker 2:I looked at myself like people were looking at me like I was uh like a zoo, like an animal in a zoo, like they want to just come take in the crime scene type looking stuff. Yeah. But across the hall from me was uh, where all these awesome restaurants and businesses and people donated food and drinks and snacks, all the things. So all the nurses that were taking care of us and the doctors I mean all the people visiting always had something to eat and that's where people were hanging out and I'd hear all the laughter and the joking and you know cause.
Speaker 2:Again, I don't expect people to be solemn and you know crying and being in the pit that I was in, but it would piss me off. I'm like man, I'm in a terrible mental place because I just created this whole freaking mess. Three cops are shot. Huge, big failure. The mission was a failure. I'm a failure. I'm like. And now here I get to have to listen to these guys across the hall and girls and women and laughing and joking and cutting up eating all the snacks and stuff and so and of course I was put on initially put on restrictions for food because I was getting ready to do surgery. So I'm starving and I'm like, okay, this fucking sucks.
Speaker 1:And you know, I would like to say that even you took the actions that 90% of the people would have done that day anyway, took the actions that 90 of the people would have done that day anyway going there. And you, because I mean, listen, you're, you're even on surveillance. You want to know where the suspect's at. Who would have thought he would be in the office at that any time. I mean, really it's not. I mean, I'm just saying this is like the you know armchair quarterback in here.
Speaker 1:But obviously, me, looking back and hearing this story, I know that you did what anybody else would have done and yeah, you could have been a little reckless or anything else like that, but most cops would have done the same thing. They would have been like, oh, go in there, let's see what's going on, we'll get a room, we'll set up surveillance, but it's just that shit hit the fan and bad, like worse than you could ever possibly imagine. And you know what. This same scenario has probably happened a million times before, where cops are going to like you know they're, they're setting up on a target and you know they go to a hotel or this and that, but the suspect being there, but not just the suspect being there, but being a violent drop of the hat suspect you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I get, I get you know. Yeah, no, and I get, I get. So, like with therapy, right, I've played this out like, okay, how else would you? What else, what? How, let's play this out several different ways, how you could have done things different, and then how would it have played out?
Speaker 2:And so, like, beyond the what ifs that I did post getting out of the hospital because I played some freaking crazy what if games right, you're right, I always carry like a little pen or screwdriver. I should have ran around the car and jumped on him and stabbed him in the eyeball like all the crazy shit would have been great for movie fodder, totally would have got me killed. Um, I played those. But then we played the real what ifs, like, okay, so you didn't, you know, if you got, went in there and got out and you didn't call him in, he's still running around armed. It's eventually like the kind of evil guy that was was going to be a shootout, like one way or the other. That guy is responsible and he makes some really dangerous decisions, because that's what really bad people do. So I was like, well, ok, well, you know what if somebody else got out on foot and I didn't, or what if I didn't? Run up to the car and then he got in a shootout and killed Mike. Like I mean, what if you didn't?
Speaker 1:play. What if he didn't play bb guns? When you're a kid, you're doing serpentine yeah, serpentine yeah so I mean it's. I mean you laugh about it, but it's true like you think about everything led you up to this point.
Speaker 1:And now what happens is like you're at a point now in your life where you have lessons learned, and I think that's where the book and I keep I've been wanting to mention the book Undercover Junkies it's coming out, but these are lessons. Like cops need to know this. Your whole career trajectory needs to be known, because people are going to fall into this. They're going to fall into it. They're going to. You're going to put that badge on. You're going to get on the street. You're going to burn out. You're going to fall into it. They're going to. You're going to put that badge on. You're going to get on a street. You're going to burn out. You're going to get here. And then you're going to get to this point where you don't think, you're thinking at an 80, 75, 60% level when you should be at a hundred percent level, thinking that it's never going to happen. But then this happens and you're in it. You're in a hospital bed for six and a half days and your career at this point is what 16, 17 years in?
Speaker 2:yeah right 16 16 years in.
Speaker 1:So I mean you're not at that 20 year point, you're not even at, you're not probably in your mind, you're not even thinking about.
Speaker 2:And I was 20 years away from wanting to be done yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, I mean it's. Uh yeah, the book. It kind of was born out of, obviously, therapy writing and I mean I wrote this out by hand, man, like six times, wrote it out by hand, rewrote it, rewrote it and typed it out. But, um, it was kind of born with the presentations and the speaking that I do, because every time I do it people are like I know a guy like that and like, but, or a lot of people too, I see myself in your stories because you see the whole transition from you know normal, you know pre, you know military and in early years, and you can see when you see it, you can see it for what it really is.
Speaker 2:And it's not just a book about war stories, because we all could write a billion of those. There's some strong messaging in it on self-awareness and self-regulation and the things that we do, like my wife when I would come home and tell her about oh, we worked this homicide scene and this guy's head was completely exploded and you know, know, laugh about it. Like I'm telling a lot of these things like they were in a movie and not like what I'm really engaging and doing. Well, that's me completely shuttling away from a traumatic thing that I either saw, witnessed or was a part of, and when we do that, that stuff still is going to build up. So, um, it's this great thing about the book. And that's all the reviews I've. I've let some you know people help me out and do some advanced reading on it, uh, and every one of them like spot on this.
Speaker 1:This is I don't want to. You know, the book is great, I'm gonna love reading it. But you know, leading up to the book there was that point where you're, like I said, you're six and a half days into it and to the hospital and and then your career is basically over.
Speaker 2:Well, I went back. I initially went back, um, beyond what and this is where we get into some leadership talks uh about this is I have a severe limp. Um, I've got no uh feeling from my mid thigh down and low, limited motor control in my left leg, and I was struggling severely with some PTSD-type situations. That was not being treated well at all, even with medication and everything else. I mean, I was still drinking that's where the drinking really took off. But about a year and a half later I went still drinking. That's where the drinking really took off. But, uh, about a year and a half later I went back to work in the same unit. I just promised my wife I wasn't going to buy dope because, man, I was that fucking addicted. Um, we got into a couple of shootings and a couple of really bad takeoffs and it took everything I had uh to.
Speaker 2:Finally was on thanksgiving day. Man, I raised my hand and I made a. I made a phone call to um, my current therapist at the time, and I said dude, I'm done, I'm done, I can't do it, I'm just gonna quit police. I'm just, I'm not. I'm not gonna look for any pension or that stuff, I'm just gonna quit because I'm I just need I'm gonna kill myself or die eventually. I'm going to die doing this and I I mean, I was drinking a fit, almost a fifth a day just to survive and it wasn't. Even that even wouldn't help, and I wasn't. I sleep in three hours a night. Maybe my nightmares are really crazy. So, yeah, uh, that was the hardest decision ever just to push that button and do what was right for me and my family, and I'm glad I did. I mean, now I'm in a 10 times better place, uh, you know all around, but yeah, you have to regulate.
Speaker 1:And that's where the the the worst thing, man, I wish I knew.
Speaker 1:I wish I knew, I wish I could have told people, I wish I could have told Jason, like when my kids were like, let's see, when I was really drinking bad, they were like around the same age, like five and six, or four and six, four and eight, something like that, but it was like that really bad place.
Speaker 1:And that's where, when you're trying to overcome what's going, the damage of your brain or what's going on in the trauma or whatever on in the trauma or whatever, and the same thing probably happened to you where you get to that point where the numbness doesn't just affect an appendage, the numbness affects your brain, where you're like, well, maybe it's just, um, maybe the, the fam be better off without me, you know, but it's not even like, but it's, it's such. And I, whenever I talk to people about like suicide and stuff like that, I always tell them that it's, it's not like a selfish. You don't at the time, you don't feel like it's a selfish thing. Sometimes, at the time you think it's like it'll be better, people will be better off without you or their life would go on, but your pain will be gone are you sure your doctor stuff is in?
Speaker 1:not well, believe me, bro I wish I, you know, I always wanted to be in this, the psychiatry thing, like when I was a kid but now man. But it's the same. It's like you get to that numbness, that numb point and I. It's hard to explain suicide to people unless you've had that, that suicidal. And it's not even. I don't even know if it's ideation. I think the ideation is when you talk about it, at the time where you're telling people, you're searching, you're trying to get help. The real suicide thing comes in when people recognize it and where it's like you would just do it, you wouldn't even think about it, you would be like, okay, I'll do it this way, you don't tell anybody about it. It's beyond suicidal ideation, it's. It's. It's at the point where it's like you are so numb that your mind shuts off your brain, your emotions shut off, because you want them to shut off.
Speaker 2:You'll do anything to shut them off, but then you, the only thing that saved me was thinking about the ripple effect with my kids that's who eventually I mean that's who gets hurt on all this right and people see it as a selfish move, and I can understand that, um, but with all of this, like you don't, you never really understand how painful being in that hole is until you're actually in it. So my buddy, my high school buddy, school buddy he's, you know, tbi guy from all his deployments and he, uh, I always gave him a lot of credit. Man, I love that kid to death. He's an amazing man and amazing person. But when I thought I was giving him enough, like you know, credit for, like man, I, man, I really totally get what you're going through and all this stuff until Until I was in a similar place as him, you just don't. You just it's hard to explain, right, you just don't know what it really and it's bad.
Speaker 2:That area is bad to be in and you're like, what can I do to fix it? But it's not even like fixing it, because fixing it is 10 times harder than I would have ever guessed. Like going through the therapy and the process and making that commitment to get better was a bitch, it was total bitch. It sucked, very painful, very tough. You just want to give up and that's that's again like drinking was the easy button to get some sleep. There seems like some easier buttons to just give up. Um, but you know, you got to look at we're warriors, first and foremost, we're warriors and there's there's a way to get out of it. That isn't giving up I think it's finding.
Speaker 1:You know, I used to have a you know I always call things a foothold like I always felt like you, I needed a foothold out of the grave, but sometimes you had that foothold into the grave, but once you find a light, and to me it was always like I had to find something to keep my mind from the pain. So that's where all this. You know, people are like well, why'd you get a doctorate, why'd you do this, why'd you do that? And I tell you, I've done all this, even to this day. I'm always doing a million different things, because when I stop and think and slow down is when the pain happens. But to this day it's different.
Speaker 1:I'm at the point now where I'm like, when I slow down, I like to be on a walk, I like to see nature, I like to see parts of this world that aren't part of the status quo that I've always had. To me it's always been like guns and shooting and law enforcement and military and podcasting and writing and this and that and everything. But I tell you what. You bring me up into the woods, man, and I finally get back to that. That point I was when I was a kid. I love being in the woods as a kid. I love seeing nature and I love just being clear something very therapeutic about the woods.
Speaker 2:I'm a big hunter. I love turkey hunting more than anything uh, deer hunting I even so I started bringing people. We have a small farm, uh, here in northern missouri. I would bring people who you know have trauma and haven't hunted and bring them out there. Like you see, the batteries get recharged and I think all that's important. So I had a really good friend, john uh came and talked to me. He's still in our department. Um, he's a the firearms instructor, but he came to talk to me after I got out of the hospital. He's a the firearms instructor, but he came to talk to me after I got out of the hospital.
Speaker 2:He's like dude, you need to find a way to get away and don't make police and everything your entire family Like when you get away, leave your phone at home and get out and just be away.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what a lot of people fail to do, because eventually, just like military or your career is going to end at some point and when you are gone you're going to realize you were a cog in a wheel that's going to be replaced. 90% of those people, I mean, I'm retired now from the police department and I don't talk to hardly any of them, not because of choice, right. Their lives move on and eventually they're going to retire. They're going to be in the same boat. So if you have done nothing but surround yourself with that family and everything, you're going to feel a really big, big loss the moment you get out. And if you don't have a different hobby, that's completely opposite from this, and I love shooting too and we do that here as a family and some friends and stuff. But getting out and just being away, traveling is awesome, as long as you can put that phone away and not tie back into work or other stuff. That just takes you away from being in the moment where you are now and that's why.
Speaker 1:You know what, bro? I, why, who did? Why didn't someone tell us this? 13, 14? Because I'm thinking like I'm gonna be 52 in two days and I'm like I'm finally almost to a point where my mind is clear. You know, I still get some shitty days, but I'm almost at that point where my mind is almost clear. A lot of my clarity comes from being away from all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Why can 37 year old me, when I was in like some of the darkest days, the numbness, why couldn't I just take a fucking weekend by myself or with the kids or whatever, and just take a walk in the woods? I mean, just do something. You know, I, I always tell people walk, because a lot of people they don't want to run and walking is just, it's just something that you just you get a clear mind when you get to a certain point. But that is one thing I mean we talk about, about therapy, we talk about group thought. But sometimes you really just need like an escape from like the social media, from the, from the, from the phone, from the work, from the life, and sometimes you need a break from the family too. Man, I mean sometimes you're like, you're like the sole solid brick, that for the family, and sometimes you need a break from that yeah, I, I mean everybody should do it.
Speaker 2:I'm with you too, all right. Well, running is a little tough for me, so walking is my, my mode anyway, but it's similar to writing, I mean, that's why I wrote stuff by hand. First, you have to slow your mind down, and the way to do it, you can think too fast if you're typing. So, getting out, even just go and sit down in woods, that's, I mean.
Speaker 2:My high school biology teacher used to make us do that as a project and I completely forgot about that until I now do it myself. We'll go and just sit, because once you disturb nature, right, you're going to see nothing. If you sit there for an hour, squirrels come out, the hawks come out, you know, if you're in there in the evening, the owls will be out, the deer will come through, you'll start seeing all kind, you'll hear all the noises, and especially if you can go out before the sun comes up and you sit down and hear the woods wake up, and there's nothing more glorious than that for sure I, uh, I'm, I keep going back to you getting shot and you like turn in your badge and but you, you've had to have gotten, like after all your therapy where, and you know some, when you leave law enforcement.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times suicide happens then because you're out of that brotherhood, you're out of that sisterhood, you're out of that camaraderie and, and to me it wasn't about really losing the badge and taking the badge off for the last time, it was not being around people and not having that identity. So what did you? What was your first, what was your pivot point from that point, like when you left?
Speaker 2:um, well, so they pulled. Initially, they pulled me from duty and just told me go sit at home until we retire you. And so, at that point, man, it was, shame was abound on that. I was like man, I can't. Uh, you know, here I am now.
Speaker 2:Uh, they cleared me to work some magical way. Uh, which you won't get into about physically, but so mentally, is why they retired me. So, like man, you talk about some shame, man, that brought it to me. And now they're well, this guy can't do the work. So, um, I had a really dark part of that, and that's where I eventually found Dr Prohaska, and she, you know, did wonders and put me through the right, you know, therapy stuff. But so, after years of that, as you know, that took them a while to finally run through its course, to finally retire me, and by that point, though, I'd gotten so much more clear and so much better, which is where, you know, I start going around, people start hearing my story, and I'm getting flooded with calls like, hey, man, we need you to come in and tell this, and that became my purpose, right, as a mission.
Speaker 1:I mean you need another mission. Your pivot point has to be a mission, brother. I mean you never let a good minute. Uh, you need another mission.
Speaker 2:Your, your pivot point has to be a mission yeah, so I mean I talk in different conferences, you know, go and talk and tell them my story and people want to hear the undercover stories and I get it. You know the voracic part of that is is very entertaining, don't get me wrong. But every one of them get the message and they understand it. And when people come up or email me, call me, I make myself available to everybody. Man, I hate, maybe that's part of it too. I need people to talk to, so I like to start a podcast. Why do you think I do a podcast? But yeah, man, it makes sense and purpose of especially my journey Because, again, undercover work was great and we put some people away for some long time and really changed society, but at a big cost. And if I can help people not catch that same cost and be able to be happy and survive and to get to retirement, and then hey, hey, man, if you start law enforcement too, like early on, you can be retired at 50 or sooner whoa, what's up?
Speaker 2:hey, you got like 20 more years. You need to do some stuff, right? I mean, you got to have something to do.
Speaker 1:But can we say more than 20 bro? Can we say like 40?
Speaker 2:well, I mean well, you'll be around for longer than okay.
Speaker 1:Maybe you only work for 20 more. Live more I want to live more than 20 years.
Speaker 2:Eventually, I plan on hanging it up completely and traveling before I can't be as mobile as I need to be.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to be climbing up Mount Everest or anything like that. You definitely got to have something to do. This is my calling now. The book was awesome to be able to help supplement. I can't get in front of everybody and not everybody will have me either, but if I can get this book in people's hands and they can see the same journey as if I'm sitting there talking, and I'm hoping that a lot of departments and agencies, and even not just law enforcement I mean mean, if you have a, you know lawyers are the same way defense lawyers. You're telling me that they're not losing themselves in their environment and that they're stressed the hell out because they're doing things against their morals and values to get people off. I mean, it's your job. Yeah there. I mean any high stress environment is going to deal with almost the exact same things that I did High-stakes sales corporate world. I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:Stress is stress, man, stress is stress. And we talked about suicide before. But suicide doesn't matter if you have a badge, suicide doesn't matter if you're a salesman, salesgirl, sales, whatever. Yeah, it doesn't matter who you are or what you are, it hits and sometimes all you need is one light bulb to go off in your head, one light bulb to go.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, well, I see life differently now and so and to me it's stories, you know, and you brought up a damn good point, man, I love to write, I love the type, but when I start writing on paper and pen it's different. You slow down Even journaling. I tell people all the time I'm like start a journal, nobody will ever have to read it, nobody will ever have to read it. You could just write a journal. It could be as simple as like. I had this cup of coffee today and it had oat milk in it and the design was great, but that taste, when I first, when I first tasted it, it's just anything right about anything, man. You know, a bird just flew by and it was like so cool to think about where'd that bird fly to. Today, you know any right about anything, because what it does is it gives your mind like peace for a little while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, I, um, I think that's important. I also think it's important if you write about your experiences and your work, of what you did, because I was fortunate that I had a pretty good memory of the things that I had done, so it was easy to get them out and put them on paper. But a lot of the people I just talked to yesterday they were like hey, I sent a big, huge email to basically tell people about this book that I worked with. Because I kept it secret, because we let our work speak for us.
Speaker 2:If you start talking about your war stories and bragging about things, then you it's frowned upon as taboo, right? Nobody wants to brag or you let your results, you know, speak for you. But I wanted to let them know like, hey, I'm doing this and I've done this and there's a purpose behind it. I'm not just telling our stories, so, uh, but I think it's important for people to join. I told them all this like you guys need to write it down. Most of them said man, I really wish I had done this early on too it's almost like taking pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like in our uc days, we took a lot of pictures, thank goodness, because I've got a lot of crazy looks and appearances and the things we look like and we're like.
Speaker 2:We always look back and like man, I wish we would have taken more. I think people should should write more, and it's therapeutic and if you can really get the real feeling on what you were feeling then and there, I think it also helps you from getting down this darker path because I was numbed out so much I eventually lost feeling. But if I could realize like hey, I'm not feeling like brett wouldn't really do this and if I'm at a point where I'm not recognizing myself in my writing, then I should be able to see that there's a change going on in me. That's probably not good and I think if you start journaling about what you're doing like that even if it's just weekly you didn't have to be every day I think you can start to see the changes before you get down to a spot where people like Dr Prask have a hard time fixing you type thing.
Speaker 1:I tell you what, man, if you could go anywhere in the whole world and travel and see where would you go. Just you Don't think about your family and nobody else, just you.
Speaker 2:I've already been there and I'd love to just go and take it all in for a longer, extended time. And it's Yellowstone, and do it? Not the tourist? I mean I love the outdoors that much, so I know that. Uh, you know, for me I'd like to go, you know also. I mean, you know I give you like a whole list of stuff, but like to see the stuff from World War II and Normandy. I know it's not as great as it probably could be from what I've heard and seen in pictures and stuff, but for me, if I was going to be able to get a chance to do my thing, hit Yellowstone but get out backpack, hike in and get out and camp out there and trying to get eaten by a grizzly, but to be able to take in just that, just how magical that place really is in its own setting, undisturbed away from the crowds, and take it in for what our country really has for a natural resource.
Speaker 1:That's it. Well, brother, I appreciate you coming on, but I do want to put out there everybody like we've had a pretty deep conversation today, a lot of talk about suicide, a lot of talk about really deep pain, about transitioning and pivoting everybody. But if anybody does need help, please reach out to someone, anybody. Get your texts out there, talk to someone If you notice anybody around you. You might not notice the symptoms right away of them going through a tough time, but please reach out. Never, ever, be alone. Don't try to tackle this with booze and addiction or or any other vice, but there are people and once you see that light bulb go off, man, your, your life will change. But, brent man, I'm really looking forward to this book. Undercover junkie Brent Cartwright. Thanks for coming on, brother.
Speaker 2:Hey, I really appreciate it, man, thank you.
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